THE EBON MUSE AND 
OTHER POEMS ENGL's^ikj* 

BY JOHN MYERS O'HARA FK \V! 
THE TEXT OF LEON LAV 








I OI'VUKIilT IIKI'OSIT. 



THE EBON MUSE 



THE EBON MUSE 

AND OTHER POEMS 



BY 

LEON LAVIAUX 



ENGLISHED 
BY 



JOHN MYERS O'HARA 



PORTLAND MAINE 
SMITH & SALE 
MDCCCCXIV 






COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY SMITH & SALE 



Of this edition two hundred copies 
have been printed. 

No. 



/^. 



JUN27l9i4 




?f HE dominant note of the first volume of 
Leon Laviaux, the young Creole poet, is 
a glorification of the_/?//t' dc couleur — a 
theme unique in literature. His poetry, except in 
so far as it pertains to an appreciation of natural 
beauty in the tropics, is unreservedly laudative of 
the dark-skinned races. This singular predilec- 
tion is due, as he tells us, both to heredity and 
environment. He seeks to give it expression in 
strange and erotic songs, through whose fulgu- 
rant smoke break flashes of lyric fire. They are 
brief bursts of passion, like volcanic puffs, too 
fierce and impetuous for prolonged fervor. Even 
this can be noticed in the fragmentary character 
of " The Ebon Muse," his only attempt at sus- 
tained utterance. It would seem that the imagi- 
native impulse, in those somnolent lands where 
inertia rules, was incapable of any enduring flight. 
This is undoubtedly the effect of climatic condi- 
tions on the mind. But Laviaux is still young. 
A cool whiff of more virile air, from zones alien 
to the eternal blue, may yet invigorate his Muse. 



Then we may have something worthier than these 
songs that voice the ultra-emotion of youth over 
plastic beauty — songs that shall breathe to us, 
through the scent of jasmine and the lure of palm, 
the soul of the Creole isles. 

J. M. o. 



CONTENTS 



The Ebon Muse . 


3 


Creole Idyls 




LIKE SLAVE AND SLAVE 


I I 


DARK ON THE SEAWARD DAWN . . 1 3 


A FOAMING LINE . 


14 


NOON .... 


15 


MYRIAD MURMURS HUSH 


16 


ZOMOQUfi 


18 


THE SHIELD A GOD 


19 


CARIBBEAN WIND 


20 


OVER THE HILL . 


21 


NIGHT, WOULD THAT I . 


23 


LUORE 




THE ORANGE FLARE 


29 


TWO GOLDEN DOVES 


31 


THE SAPPHIRE TIDE 


32 


MY PASSION FOR GOLDEN FL 


ESH . . 33 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

ZaIre 

out of thy large fruit-luscious 

mouth, zaire 37 

the grace of the white and brute 

of the black 38 

strange frenzies fill ... 39 

a sorcery 40 

Tanesse 

thou art fair as the palm . . 43 
sluggish as some palm-fringed and 

placid flood 44 

your flesh has the scent . . 45 

undo the scarf that hides . .- 46 

Fafine 

thy parroquets, fafine ... 49 

nude in the cool . . . . 50 

though fair, o north, thy nymphs 5 1 

my amber dove . . . . . 52 



You will find the colors of the flesh are 
even more varied and surprising than 
the colors of fruit. Nevertheless it is only 
with fruit colors that many of these skin- 
tints can correctly be compared. There are 
banana-tints , lemon-tones, orange-hues, zvith 
sometimes such mingling of ruddiness as in 
the pink ripening of the mango. Agreeable 
to the eyes the darker skins certainly are, and 
often very retnarkable — all clear tones of 
bronze being represented ; but the brighter 
tints are absolutely beautiful. There is one 
rare race type, totally unlike the rest; the 
skin has a perfectly golden tone, an exquisite 
metallic yellow ; the eyes are long and have 
long silky lashes ; the hair is a mass of thick, 
rich, glossy curls that shoiv blue lights in the 
sun. What mingling of races prodttced this 
beautiful type? I do not think the term 
olive always indicates the color of this skin, 
which seemed to me exactly the tint of gold ; 
and the hair flashes with bluish lights like 
the plumage of certain black birds. 



Physically the fille de couleur may certainly 
be classed, as white Creole writers have not 
hesitated to class her, luith the most bea^itiful 
women of the humaii race. She has inher- 
ited not only the finer characteristics bodily 
of either parent race, but something else 
belonging originally to neither, and created 
by special climatic and physical conditions — 
a grace, a suppleness of form, a delicacy of 
extremities, so that all lines described by the 
bending of limbs are parts of clean curves. 

Among her class there are figures to make 
you dream of Atalanta — and all, whether ugly 
or attractive as to feature, are finely shaped 
as to body and limb — a type of the htiman 
thorojighbitd representing the true secret of 
grace — economy of force. 

— LAFCADtO HEARD. 



/ am, by fates decree 
And my heredity. 
Of soul a Jiedonist, 
Offtesh an ebonist. 



THE EBON MUSE 




THE EBON MUSE 

SAW two palms, like temple columns, soar 
Into the night, and under far, the shore 
Encircle with its arms of sand the sea 
That sighed upon its bosom drowsily ; 
And all the slopes that fell in flowers to meet 
The wave receding foamless at their feet, 
As wide and gradual steps of purple seemed 
Ascending to the summit where I dreamed ; 
Above the palms that mingled crowns and made 
An arch where rustling verdure overswayed. 
Full-orbed, and like a splendid lamp, the moon 
Hung golden in the starless dusk of June; 
The very air was odor, and the calm 
Was that of love's own sleep on sea and palm ; 
And on my lids and in my heart the spell 
With irresistible insistence fell ; 
Each drowsy sense was yielding, but before 
The ways of dream had closed the final door. 
Out of a sudden flash of lyric flame. 
And virginal for me, the vision came ! 



She came for me, out of a cloud of fire, 

A regal evocation of desire ; 

For me, sole dreamer of a Creole isle, 

Sole wooer of her world-forgotten smile ; 

She came from some dim haunt of spirit-peace, 

The asphodel of shadow and surcease ; 

Across the sea, as o'er the Stygian stream. 

Leaving the hidden shore of dusk and dream ; 

I saw her dimly, gazing from afar, 

As through horizon mists a sable star ; 

The banished Muse, released from that malign 

Decree that doomed her to her sister Nine ; 

In Song's far dawn they first beheld her nude. 

Abashed before a goddess ebon-hued ; 

Drooping their lids, they turned from her in shame, 

A being branded with almighty blame ; 

Swiftly repulsing her they turned away, 

Mnemosyne's white daughters of the day; 

And left her, child of chaos, with the blight 

Born of the black abysses of the night. 

Like a bronze statue, in the softer glow. 
She stood immobile, near to me, and lo ! 
Where well a laureled throng might bend to her, 
I was alone, her poet-worshipper ; 



Her lids, unlifted still, were thrall to sleep, 

Sweet where the underworld is poppy-deep ; 

Unravished still the lips that parted mute. 

Riper and moister than a luscious fruit ; 

One hand was raised while one was pressed to feel, 

Against her heart, its passionate appeal ; 

The surging thrill of life in every vein. 

Glowing and potent for delight and pain ; 

Erect and tense, lifting their pointed pride, 

Inviolate her breasts in fervor vied; 

Between her shoulders shone a glossy track. 

The dented slope of her imperial back ; 

The contour of her torso seemed to me 

A polished buckler of black ivory ; 

Her loins' curves like a lyre's whose symmetries 

Dipped faultless to the dimples of the knees ; 

Her arms with darkling sheen were sleek and fair. 

Her throat blue-shadowed where the lustrous hair 

Clung as the crater's smoke that densely drifts 

When the far cloud below it breaks and lifts ; 

And fruits and flowers, upon her burning mouth, 

Bruised juice and drenched the perfume of the South ; 

The mystery of the heavens was in her eyes. 

Creation's vast and fathomless surmise ; 

Elusive vision of immortal love 



Falling through shadow from the dome above ; 
She seemed the incarnation of the night, 
The glorious antithesis of light ; 
As darkness deepened all her beauty shone 
Fairer than any underneath the sun ; 
And leaping upward, a triumphal span 
Of sudden stars from wave to zenith ran ; 
The lustre of the moon, a paling power, 
Lingered as for a god's own bridal hour ; 
And up the purple steps she came to me. 
The last between the summit and the sea. 

She came with passion in her eyes that were 
Dewy with languor, and with lips of myrrh ; 
Beneath her lashes lurked volcanic fire. 
Her breath was fragrance and her glance desire ; 
Fervor and flame of song were in her face, 
All memory of beauty in her grace ; 
Promise of swift fruition and the fair 
Largess of virile years to live and share ; 
Fresh flowers to hide the faded ones below, 
An aureole to crown the waning glow ; 
Rapture for torture, smiles for futile tears. 
And satiation for the pang that sears ; 
Illusion upon illusion, and the arts 



Of great dead lovers, earth's memorial hearts ; 
All this and more my soul was conscious of, 
Delirious with her beauty and her love ; 
She came and stood before me, and delight 
Half stifled speech and almost blinded sight ; 
I dared not look, so stirred by all I felt, 
But every sense was conscious that she knelt. 

She leaned to me and laid her lips on mine, 
Imperiously bending but benign ; 
I drank the lyric fervor of her mouth, 
The soul to sing the glamor of the South ; 
High inspiration and the will to make 
A vital strain to which the world would wake ; 
Leaving the beaten paths of Song to blow 
Strange music where a fameless people go ; 
The equal glory of the night and day. 
Wresting from light its long unchallenged sway ; 
A hymn of racial beauty, rare and new. 
The rival lure beneath the ebon hue ; 
The radiance of the suns that triumph in 
The finer lustre of the golden skin ; 
Burnished as bronze or sable as the rise. 
Velvet and deep, of moonless midnight skies. 



This was the gift, my heritage, that she 
Gave with the kiss whose fire is memory ; 
Whose freshness is of Heliconian dews. 
The consecration of the Ebon Muse. 



CREOLE IDYLS 



LIKE slave and slave 
With mighty plumes, 
Great palm trees wave 

Their clustered blooms ; 
Along the shores 
A curving mile 
Of blackamoors 
In giant file. 

Their trunks that show 

An ebon gleam, 
A shining row 

Of torsos seem ; 
Each crest of green 

As madras wound 
In silken sheen 

Their brows around. 

And unelate, 

This pageantry 
A potentate 

Has made of me ; 



The yellow sand 

Is my divan 
That perfume-fanned 

I bask upon. 

Red rifts above 

The waves that break, 
A circle of 

Flamingos make; 
My slaves I mark 

With listless eye, 
And near me dark 

Sultanas lie. 



12 



DARK on the seaward dawn, 
Into the roseate fire, 
The palms aspire ; 

Into the void they yawn, 

Summit to summit wed, 
Green-helmeted. 



13 



A FOAMING line 
Of waves define 
The outer bar 
Of shores afar ; 

Beneath the beat 
Of blinding heat, 
The ocean's hue 
Is molten blue; 

Where shoreward wide 
The surges ride, 
Two buzzards stand 
Upon the sand ; 

And high in air, 
Against the glare. 
Two others fly 
And blot the sky ; 

Between the sun 
And soar of one 
Colossal palm 
That lords the calm. 



NOON! 
Silence and heat ; 
A Creole tune 

On the lips of old Fadette ! 

Noon! 

Drowsy and sweet 
The. patois croon 

On the lips of old Fadette ! 



15 



M 



YRIAD murmurs hush 
A haunt of sloth, 
Heavy with heat and lush 
With giant growth ; 



Masses of cyclic mold 

Impede the way, 
Pungent with scent of old 

And vast decay ; 

Under the leaves that dome 

Profundity, 
Yellow lianas roam 

From tree to tree ; 

Ever the endless green, 

The endless shade ; 
Riot of plants that screen 

The forest glade ; 

Brilliant with flowers that surge 

From tangled strife, 
Breathing creative urge 

Of tropic life ; 

i6 



Potence of earth elate 
And savage grown, 

Under the suns that sate 
Its belting zone. 



17 



ZOMOQUE! 
Ecstatic bird, 
Sing on, thy heart to ease ; 
While the glad trees 
Toss a white cloud of blossoms to the breeze ! 

Zomoque! 

I have not heard 

The nightingale, but these 

Mad melodies 

Are more to me than songs of other seas ! 



i8 



T 



HE shield a god 

Might bear who trod 
Along the world ; 



Or disk of fire 
Immortal ire 

From heaven hurled ; 

The sea-line's rim 
Is purple dim 

Beneath its glow ; 

It leaves a scar 
Of cinnabar, 

And sinks below. 



19 



o 



CARIBBEAN wind! 
Freshen afar and bend 
The trees that are to thee 
Thy twilight litany ; 



Stir in their tops and send 
Through palm and tamarind, 

Blown from a shadowed sea, 
Thy vesper prayer to me. 



o 



VER the hill 

Of stunted palms 
Faint rumbles come ; 



Breaking the still 
Night with its calms, 
The voodoo drum ! 



Odor of leaves, 

Flowers of the vine. 
Odor of flesh ; 

Riot that weaves. 
Bodies that shine. 
Dances that mesh ; 

Black satyrs steal. 
Like jaguars, 

On nymphs as black; 

And whirl and reel. 
Beneath the stars. 
Demoniac ; 



Powdered with dust, 
Panting they writhe 
In fierce embrace ; 

Burning with lust, 
Humid and lithe 
Their limbs enlace 



Over the hill 

Of stunted palms 

Faint rumbles come ; 

Breaking the still 
Night with its calms, 
The voodoo drum ! 



NIGHT, would that I, 
God of the sky, 
Heaped gems on thy dark 
Bare breasts that I mark ; 
Mine for delight, 
Amorous Night! 

Night, ere we part, 

Take from thy heart 
One jewel to be 
Cast earthward for me ; 

Swiftly a star 
Falls from afar ! 



23 



o 



F my loves there arc four 

That my song would endear , 
Golden Luore I 
Ebon Zaire I 



And with lyric caress 
Laurel each, as a queen ; 

Bronze-hued Tanesse ! 

Amber Fafine I 



LUORE 



THE orange flare 
Is wide on the west, Luore ! 
And verdured palms in the lucent air 
Tower by the shore. 

The jasmine scent 
Swoons heavy and sweet, Luore ! 

Where blossom-thick is the vine's ascent 
Over the door. 

Your languid eyes 
Are dim with desire, Luore ! 

And in your heart is the heat that skies 
At noon can pour. 

Your body cleaves 
In ardor to mine, Luore ! 

Close as the vine, with its fragrant leaves, 
The palm upbore. 

As sweet as fruit 
And poignant your kiss, Luore ! 

Our lips, with ravishing fire, embrute 
At rapture's core. 



29 



Soul of the South, 
I could, O my queen, Luore ! 

Yield all my life on your luscious mouth 
And be no more. 



30 



Two golden doves 
That fill their scented nest : 
Haunt of the Loves, 

Twin treasures of her breast ; 

Fairer than throat 

Or shoulder garment-free, 
My glances gloat 

Upon their luxury. 



31 



THE sapphire tide, 
Foam-fringed and inlet-wide, 
Creeps to the beach ; 
And the long ripples reach 
Like silver lips o'erlapping each on each ; 

And eager o'er 
The body of Luore, 

That lies supine. 

They melt away as wine 
Poured lavish by some lover on a shrine ; 

Linger and kiss 
With lips of liquid bliss 

Each charm, and trace 

The way of their embrace, 
Until they vanish in some secret grace ; 

And then, at last, 
Their fluid lure is passed ; 

And blithely she 

Comes dripping from the sea. 
And gives herself, a golden nymph, to me. 



32 



M" 



Y passion for golden flesh 
Seeks a honied mesh 
(Like a bird that would soar 
From its nest no more) 
In thy beautiful bosom, Luore ! 

My kisses, that flow as fire 
O'er a fane, expire 

(Like a flambeau of yore 

At the bridal door) 
In thy beautiful bosom, Luore ! 



33 



ZAIRE 



OUT of thy large fruit-luscious mouth, Zaire ! 
As music fell, 
With velvet iteration on my ear. 
That syllable ; 

As soft as flowers that patois of the French 

From musky lips 
That slur the guttural, O comely wench, 

Caressful slips ; 

Its murmur wooes the sense with fervor of 

Some drowsy wine ; — 
O language of the Creole isle of love. 

Thou, too, art mine ! 



37 



THE grace of the white and brute of the black 
Were mixed in thee ; 
A simian face — the slope of thy back, 
Callipyge ! 

Dark lustre of lines that are sculpture-sleek, 

The vapid leer ; 
A whim for the monstrous did Nature wreak 

In tall Zaire ! 



38 



STRANGE frenzies fill 
Thy black and shining bosom's rise and fall 
Wild passion's primal thrill, 
Its brutal rapture immolating all ; 

The gust that sweeps 
The unrelenting flame along the blood ; 

The tidal throe that keeps 
Writhing the crest of its voluptuous flood ; 

The slime and fire 
That overboil the crater of thy soul ; 

The ruin of desire 
That tears, like the tornado, to its goal. 



39 



A SORCERY 
Is thine intense ; 
The odor of thy bosom is to me 
A potent redolence ; 

Poignant yet sweet, 
It breathes thy race; 
Enters my veins, a fierce and virile heat. 
Burning for thy embrace. 



40 



TANESSE 



T 



HOU art fair as the palm 

By the shore, in the calm 
Of the night, Tanesse ! 



Thou art regal to me 
As that loveliest tree 

Of the south, Tanesse ! 



43 



SLUGGISH as some palm-fringed and placid flood 
Of current slow, 
The hidden fervor blended in thy blood 
Must ever flow ; 

A tropic fire that slumbers in thy veins, 

My bronze capresse ; 
Languor of isles of indolence that reigns 

In thee, Tanesse ! 



44 



YOUR flesh has the scent 
Of an exquisite musk, 
From the amorous dusk 
Of the orient ; 

But the ankle-bells, 
That tinkle and fret 
Like a silver jet, 

Are a ring of shells ; 

And the madras green. 
As thy crowning gem. 
Is the diadem 

On thy tresses seen ; 

And the girdled whisk 
Of a garment loose 
Is the passion-noose 

Of an odalisque ; 

And the jasmine gates. 
With their attar-jar, 
Is the dim bazaar 

Where thy lover waits. 

45 



u 



NDO the scarf that hides 

Thy breast whose bronze divides 
In turgent loveliness 
Of hue, Tanesse ! 



For charms of fairer tint 
Bare throat and shoulder hint ; 

Sleek slopes that my caress 

Descends, Tanesse ! 



46 



FAFINE 



THY parroquets, Fafine, 
With plumage green, 
Doze in the mango tree ; 

Only the insect-sound 

Strident around ; 
Life is a revery. 

Broad on the sleeping town 

The sun beats down ; 
White the deserted street ; 

Hot is the hillward noon, 

My octoroon ; 
Dream in the shadow. Sweet ! 

Curl on the woven mat 

Lithe as a cat. 
Lissome of limb and arm ; 

Slumber will soon relax, 

Supple as wax. 
All of thy body's charm. 



49 



N 



UDE in the cool 
Palm-shaded pool ; 



The ripples gloat 
Around your throat ; 

Your amber limbs 
Seem lotus stems ; 

Your hair the blue 
Weed's floating hue ; 

Your face a far 
Strange nenuphar. 

Hot humid dusk 
Of moon and musk ; 

Great stars that light 
The languid night ; 

A couch of moss 
To dream across ; 

And near to me — 
Oh, ecstasy ! 

The moon's soft sheen 
On you, Fafine. 

50 



THOUGH fair, O North, thy nymphs 
And half divine; 
Colder to me the glimpse 
Than snow of thine ; 

Fair with the statue's grace. 

Its frozen dream ; 
Whose faultless curves no trace 

Of tint redeem ; 

Thrall to the law within. 

To Nature true ; 
Give me the golden skin 

Or darker hue. 

Futile, O lure of white, 

Thy pale appeal ! 
Mine is an Afric blight 

That few may feel. 



51 



Y amber dove, 
My Creole queen, 



M 

O leave me not, my love ! 



The Northern skies 
Are grey, and lean 

Above a land of sighs ; 

And none will care 
Of all, Fafine, 

For beauty deemed less fair ; 

Their hearts are cold. 
Their ways are mean. 
Their only god is gold ; 

When you forsake 
These slopes of green, 

Your heart, Fafine, will break ; 

My southland rose. 
Abide between 

My arms that fold you close ; 

Ah, tears ! they tell. 
My Creole queen, 

That this is not farewell ! 



HERE ENDS THE EBON MUSE AND OTHER 
POEMS ENGLISHED BY JOHN MYERS O'HARA 
FROM THE TEXT OF LfiON LAVIAUX AND 
PRINTED BY SMITH & SALE PORTLAND MAINE 



Deacidifiod using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutraltzrng Agent; Magnesium Oxjde 
Treatment Date: 

MAR -sm 

JBBKKEEPER 

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